First Hockey Game!

Last night, we got a taste of how the other half lives. (Crazy Bloggin' Canuck, you're not the only one! lol!)

We got to see a Florida Panther hockey game in box seats. For free.

Hubby works for a very large company. He is on the team that decides which computer software to purchase for the whole company. They have been regular customers of Symantec (formerly Norton.) Anyway, the Symantec guys wanted to express their appreciation to our guys, so they gave Hubby and his team tickets to watch the hockey game in their private box. It included free food, free drinks, and as you can see, visits from the Panther Ice Dancers.

We enjoyed our evening out very much. Lancelot was so good! I was a little nervous that people would scowl at us, bringing a baby into a private box like that, but everyone was so nice and friendly, and Lancelot just won everybody's hearts!!

They grow up so fast!!

*Sniffle, sniffle*

Can someone hand me a tissue, please?

Yesterday I had to pack away Lancelot's newborn baby clothes. Every single item of clothing had some memory attached to it: "This is what he wore on the day he first smiled!" "He wore this little hat the first time we took him to our Bible study." "These are the socks he always kicked off!" "This is the onesie he pooped all over..." etc etc etc.

I'm sure I shed a tear or two.

On the brighter side, this means he can now wear all the cute 3-month size clothes that he received as gifts at the baby shower. The adorable little rompers that have been hanging in the closet, just waiting for Lancelot to wear them! The blue-and-white striped little cap that used to come down over his eyes is now a perfect fit! The cute teddy bear t-shirt and short set I found at a garage sale months before he was born!

I think I'm going to make a point of photographing him in each outfit the first time he wears them, so I'll be able to remember how he looked in all his baby clothes without digging through a plastic tub. All I'll have to do is open the photo album!

It's amazing how little use he got out of the clothes. It made me realize how silly it is to pay big bucks for baby clothes. Some stuff he never even GOT to wear because it was mis-sized! The sleepers that are marked 3-6 months but which are too tight in the arms and legs. Stuff like that.

E-Bay and thrift stores, here I come!

Of Dexterity and Clumsiness

My motor skills have improved since having a baby.

I can do things one-handed. I can hold the baby, get a jug of milk out of the fridge, close the fridge door with my foot, pour a glass of milk, put the milk back in the fridge, and do all of this without dropping the baby.

That's incredible.

I can keep my balance while carrying Lancelot in his carseat, walking down the stairs with a diaper bag on one shoulder, a purse on the other, and keys in my hands.

Amazing!

And yet I trip over my shoes while walking to the bathroom. No baby in my arms, no diaper bag dangling from my shoulder.

I'm a dexterous clutz. I think I'll start a club. All mothers of infants are welcome to join.

Got Milk? (Or, "Ode to My Mammary Glands")

Relactate: (v) 1. The process of re-establishing one's milk supply

2. A desperate attempt at becoming a better mother

Well ladies, after 2 months of not nursing Lancelot, I have decided to try and trick my body into producing milk once again. See, after little Lancelot was born, we had a miserable time of it. Due to biological/physical factors on both our parts, recovering from surgery and a nasty case of post-partum depression, it was just a lot easier to switch to formula and forget the whole shabang.

Now, however, after some time has passed and we have settled into somewhat of a routine, I am confident that I would be able to breastfeed the little guy. I learned that women whose babies are under 4 months old and who had established a milk supply before are generally successful at getting the process started again.

It means lots of pumping. Lots. Pumping isn't so much fun to begin with, but when you're sitting at a machine tugging at your boobs for days on end and you're only managing to squeeze out a few drops, it gets kinda depressing! However, this morning I was able to get more than a few drops-- not much more, but they were of sufficient volume to drip down into the bottle! Woohoo! And that telltale breast tenderness of the early days has returned. Hope has been restored!

I have a specific goal, too. In about a month, we are taking a family Disney trip- me, hubby, Lancelot, my parents and sister, and hubby's sister-- and I so don't want to be lugging my Medela Pump-In-Style through the Magic Kingdom. Ducking into the bathrooms every two hours-- there's an attraction not mentioned in the brochure!! I suppose I could bring my Avent Isis hand pump. Imagine this: standing in line for Splash Mountain, pumping away. I've got my own splashing action going on!

So this week, I am taking a "nursing holiday." I will be staying home as much as possible, attaching the girls to their good friend Medela every two hours, and walking around in a nursing bra, trying to get Lancelot to latch on whenever he can/feels like it.

If I haven't seen progress by the end of the week, I may reevaluate my decision. There's only so much "dry pumping" one can take.

(It will be interesting to see the bizarre google searches that will turn up this blog in their results! lol!)

Is there a method to the madness?

The subject of today's post is...naptime.

My sweet little Lancelot loves to sleep. A lot. At unpredictable times. I am so fortunate that he already sleeps 7 hours at night (hallelujah!!), but daytime napping is an entirely different story. One day, he took 6 30-minute naps. The next day, 3 45-minute naps. Yesterday, a 2 hour nap and a 3 hour nap. Some days he'll sleep 5 or 10 minutes off and on the whole day long!

The only discernable pattern thus far is for his first nap of the day. Generally, he'll wake up around 6:30-7:00am, be up for an hour, and then go down for a nap. Sometimes 20 minutes, yesterday for 2 1/2 more hours! So while I can't count on the length of his nap, I can usually count on him going down for a nap after an hour or so.

For the rest of the day, there's no telling what to expect.

I was wondering, do most babies eventually fall into a predictable napping pattern? If so, when does this take place? If I knew when he was going to nap, it would be so much easier to plan my day!

He's napping now, so I'm off to watch the rest of my Voyager episode off my TiVO, and to finish the pumping session that was so rudely interrupted. :)

Have a lovely day!

I'm Ba-Ack!

Greetings, Blogosphere!

I have returned from the land of new-mommyhood and am beginning to resume some of my previous activities, modified of course to accommodate a 2 1/2 month old baby.

Lancelot is, as you have noticed if you read the above sentence, 2 1/2 months old. He is laughing, cooing, holding up his head, and starting to reach for objects, and I am the happiest mommy on the face of the planet.



Then, he'll screw up his face, poke out his lower lip, and start wailing. Then I'm the most frustrated mommy on the face of the planet.

That's what is so interesting about motherhood-- it is the happiest of times, and it is the aggravating-est of times.

Can I get an amen?

Fortunately, I am not alone in my new journey. Damselfly has helped me out a great deal, giving me advice, sharing coffee at Starbucks, and going for walks in our local park. I tell ya, it sure helps to have someone else along with you when you become a new mommy. Kind of like having a workout buddy. Strength in numbers, I say.

She told me that I'm not a bad mother because I forgot to buckle up Lancelot's car seat.

She taught me that nuclear explosive poos which are expelled out the back of the diaper and all over a baby's back are normal and are no reason to call the pediatrician.

She showed me how much babies love gadgets like the Rainforest Jumperoo.

Her little Flybaby and Lancelot are going to grow up to be great friends.



And most of all, she listened to me cry and moan when I thought I just couldn't handle this whole mommy thing, because she had been there, too, and assured me it would pass and that I would be a great mommy.

I don't know if I'm a great mommy, but the crying and moaning has indeed passed.

Hallelujah.

He's here!!

My little Lancelot arrived on Tuesday, November 28th at 6:21 p.m. He was 7 pounds and 14 ounces, and was 21 inches long.

Late Monday night, contractions started. The REAL ones. I decided to go to bed and get as much rest as I could, since I knew I had an ordeal ahead of me! Sleep never came, but I sat in my bathtub, listening to my "slow and sweet" mix on my mp3 player. I also went to the recliner, sat on my birth ball, all sorts of things. I called my doula at 1 am, and she talked me through some of the rougher contractions. I was able to calm myself down and get through a couple more hours.

6 am Tuesday morning, the water breaks. It's not running clear. Lancelot decided to pass meconium in utero, so we rush to the hospital. I was planning on having a water birth, but because of this particular complication, they have to keep me on a fetal heart monitor, so no tub for Guinevere!

7 am Tuesday morning, I'm settled into my room at the hospital. I'm pretty relaxed, considering I've already been in labor for quite some time. I have my husband, my mother, and my doula with me the whole time, and between the three of them, they keep me calm enough so that I don't ask for pain medication until 4 pm.

5 pm Tuesday evening, I've been pushing for 3 hours and little Lancelot is stuck tight. He's not moving down the birth canal. They decide to do a C-Section. While this is quite far from my original plan, I was totally relieved to know that in a matter of an hour or so, I would have my baby!

6 pm Tuesday evening, they take me to the O.R. They give me a spinal, and the pain of the past 18 hours MELTS away. (Had I known how good this was going to be, I SO would have asked for it earlier!! Natural birth, my a**. Ha!)

6:21, my little boy is born! Because of the meconium in the amniotic fluid, the neonatalogist has to see him right away, so I don't see my little baby immediately. Hubby does; he gets to cut the cord. He has our digital camera, so he snaps a picture of the little guy and brings it over to me while they start closing me up. Can you imagine? I see a photograph of my baby before I see the baby!!

About an hour later, they're done sewing me up and the spinal is wearing off. I go back to the recovery room where I get to hold my baby at last. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever looked at in my whole life. Until this moment, I had no idea what love was.

Tomorrow, Lancelot will be 2 weeks old! He is a very good baby, not terribly fussy, and sleeps like the dead. Yes, he wakes up every 2-3 hours for food and a poop, but other than that, nothing in the world will wake up this child unless he WANTS to be awake! This causes some problems, but I have to admit it's making the adjustment home much easier.

We're off to a doctor appointment now- a pediatric cardiologist- his pediatrician heard a heart murmur at his first well-baby checkup, and wants us to have it checked out. She assures us that it's quite normal in newborns to have this, but I'm still a little nervous!

Have a great day, everyone!